Opposing Mirrors
by Laryna6
Summary: The Vortex World has pulled them in, and it's not as simple as going with the flow. DanteNaokiFutomimi: three fighters, three demons, three humans, three people. And more.
1. I've Been Here Before

_A springkink lj group prompt collection - messed up people messing up in an apocalypse'd world._

_June 5) Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Dante/Futomimi: Drunk sex - And I thought I was fucked up._

* * *

Frankly, when he'd first met Futomimi he hadn't been impressed.

The Amala Labyrinth, keeper of the secrets of what the specific Hell was going on here, ranked pretty high up on the list of places his boss didn't want him to go. Sure, he could collect the candelabra like he'd been hired to (the kid was just number one on the list) but where was the fun in that?

He'd had his fill of opening up places his enemies wanted to get into for the sake of finding out what was going on back at Temen ni Gru, thanks. In retrospect, he should have just given Vergil the finger. If he'd ignored the bastard's showing off and stayed home then Vergil wouldn't have gotten what Vergil wanted.

Suicide.

Only no, Vergil hadn't gotten what he wanted, now had he.

Futomimi had reminded him of a large number of idiots. Trying to summon a god: lucky they couldn't succeed. What they had, a place where they and demons lived in harmony, was good enough. But no, people want ultimate power without grasping that ultimate power is just a tool. It's not worth jack if it doesn't get you what you want. He was the king of his local underworld, yadda yadda yadda, stronger than his father at his peak, stronger than Mundus, power beyond Vergil's dreams and frankly it still wasn't bringing any of his family members back so it was more of a hassle than it was worth. Lots of devils coming to challenge him, no one showing up worth having a relationship with.

At least the whole power deal meant he didn't have to worry about someone taking the opportunity to use a holy water on a certain portion of his anatomy or get 'accidently' pregnant so they had another member of his family to torture like Vergil. Let them _try_.

At least Futomimi was a well-meaning idiot who wouldn't actually do anything bad with that power. He just failed to realize that since they couldn't use that power gathering it there was just asking for it. Or maybe he'd known that others were trying to make worlds the Manikins wouldn't like (no one would, not even the creators) and gathered that power so that they couldn't use it.

Hadn't worked, but it had worked for quite a long time. The other two had needed to find power sites to unlock since they couldn't find enough ambient power.

Idiot kid. He should have known better. Amala Temple his…

Naoki needed to stop reminding Dante of when he was young and stupid.

Same with Futomimi.

The seer, whose powers were not infinite or even at all useful, had sent him to Amala in exchange for Dante's information on the fourth major player. Naoki, as Dante had guessed and Futomimi had confirmed, was a great kid. The Manikins were grateful to him. The Matador, however, they were not grateful for. His camping out right next to them and randomly attacking people had crippled their efforts to defend their first home against the Mantra.

The next time he saw him was after he'd hired on to the kid.

He wasn't surprised when he got the story out of him.

After all, Dante had been Tony once._ He_ hadn't killed for fun, but people like Futomimi had been? They'd been a dime a dozen.

He'd recreated himself a peacemaker 'Mimi had, in a world where he had a choice. Then he'd been killed by Chiaki, then he'd remembered and had to deal with the fact that the murderous bitch he and a bunch more of his people had been killed by had been _just like him_. That he'd created the mass murderer Sakahagi as well. Turned the businessman, the family man Sakahagi had once been into him and taken his place…

Dante had looked over the kid's shopping list, given him a few knocks on the head for being bad at it (ah, the old days when he'd had to make every red orb count), given the list to Sakahagi, and dragged Futomimi over to Nyx's bar where Dante proceeded to act the jerk and 'force' him to get drunk enough the walls broke down. He knew about control. The wise man, the killer: Futomimi had never gone without a mask.

Dante, after sampling everything in the bar, managed to find something that was ungodly expensive, being made from fifteen things (ambrosia was the cheapest) over about five thousand years counting aging that actually worked. It was ungodly expensive, but he wasn't very godly and he had stuff saved up that he wasn't letting the kid know about because then he'd get even worse at money managing and come wining to Dante for a handout.

The one good thing about this amount of power was that he could safely get blasted when he found something strong enough to blast him. Sex and hard fights were the only other things that let him vent, and nowadays? He'd left his own universe because there wasn't anything worth fighting anymore, forget fucking.

The last thing he remembered was expounding to Mimi his personal philosophy that people were morons. If he were God, he'd be destroying universes much more often, especially if they kept blaming him for the consequences of their own stupidity. The problem was, if they died and got reborn then they had a hard time actually learning anything. Mimi being a sort of ghost was the only reason he'd made any progress on what he'd learned Not to Do as a street thug.

God killing the morons was making them _stay _morons and he therefore had to have some sense beaten into him so that they could get working on beating sense into everyone else, because otherwise they'd be spending the rest of eternity surrounded by morons.

If he wanted to do that, then he'd have kept working for Lucifer. While it made people feel better torturing morons only did them so much good. No, you had to let them fuck up and make sure they stayed alive so you could point and laugh.

…Vergil…

He shouldn't have gone into the whole thing with his brother who had MPD and was refusing to be woken up out of it just like Dante had when he was Tony. He wasn't going to kill Kyrie, hell no. Vergil was happy like that. It still sucked.

He didn't have a hangover the morning after. He'd have preferred that to Mimi fawning over him and being all apologetic and ashamed about being emo and complaining to Dante and letting it affect his battle performance when Dante had it so much worse.

Dante ended up having to go into what he'd been doing at Futomimi's stage in the process of Dealing With Shit to get him to snap out of it. If those details ever got back to Naoki he'd lose all respect and if he wouldn't listen to Dante now that things had started to get serious then the newbie was fucked, and not in a good way.


	2. Peace of Mind

_Why do people think someone who rose to the status of priest-king in this life and was a killer in another one would be anything but dangerous? Words are weapons too._

_Springkink prompt – July 9 #60 - Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Shu (Demi-Fiend)/Futomimi: Hair worship - "I wish I could give you even more than the world"_

* * *

Shura waited for his lover at the gate of his people's holy land.

It was forbidden to him no longer, but Futomimi did not ask Shura-who-had-been-Naoki to join him there.

They both remembered the events of his last journey therein.

The King of the Demons that dwelt within what had once been the human world and the Seer of the Manikins that were the remnants of those humans: their tale was legend, how the two who had been only half-human, only half able to forge a Reason had conceived of this Peace between them.

But, "Do you regret it? Do you regret not restoring your world?" was the question Futomimi did not forsee himself ever asking, as much as it trembled on his lips. The old world was for him the world of his sin, but for Naoki who had rejected that name…

He had (for)seen the monstrous acts of Shura's friends, the death of the teacher he had almost loved, how it would drive Shura to reject restoring the world of humans, the world of such evil. And he had done nothing to stop it, had asked Shura to be his guide, had spoken words he knew would cause the boy to love him with the coldness of the human killer he had once been.

And Shura loved him, but his love for Shura would forever be tainted with his guilt in this world eternal.

And as Shura twined fingers through Futomimi's hair, murmuring as he had a hundred times before how it was more beautiful when it was free, as the demon that had defeated Kagatsuchi itself bowed his head to nuzzle the neck of his tamer, Futomimi felt as cruel as the human he had once been.

Shura was happy, this was the world he had been led to want, but…


	3. Shed Some Light On Me

This is quite late. This was from the last round on this community I wrote for, and I was too dead at that point to repost to Then my laptop and the copies on it died.

Better late than never? Unless you would have preferred never.

This one's date is July 18. The next one of mine I can find is for 30. I know I wrote some in between these… well, perhaps they should stay buried?

Title: Shed Some Light On Me

Author: Laryna6

Disclaimer: I don't own them, Capcom and Atlus do. Nor do I profit from this.

A/N: ...sorry, this one refused to develop a point, and Vergil refused smex.

Rating: G

Springkink prompt – July 18 #7 - Devil May Cry/SMT: Nocturne, Dante/Vergil/Main Character: Humanity - "You hold a candle in your heart"

-

The candelabra are the keys to navigating the Amala, which lies between the universes. That meant that since he got to keep the Candelabrum of Wisdom now, he'd never end up stuck in another universe again. A way better payment than one macca, but Lucifer could afford it more than 'Shura.

It also meant he could pay an old friend a visit. He'd stopped in on alternate-Griffon and the others in that universe he'd ended up in thanks to the Beastheads. They were all too happy to show him where alternate-Mundus had kept alternate-Dante prisoner, once he told them why he wanted to know.

And sure enough, his Vergil was kept in that same place in his universe.

After that, the Candelabrum mostly gathered dust on a shelf in the main office.

Now, though, it was reacting to the presence of the Candelabrum of Foundation.

Vergil couldn't help but be jealous.

He'd been born a half-demon and he couldn't defeat Mundus: Naoki had been given power he was utterly unprepared for and not only become a complete being, but been the key to defeating the Multiversal Consciousness. 'God' was a term used for so many beings, after all. You had to be more specific, in their business. Trees, Mundus… humans would worship anything.

And apparently the Amalan Demons were treating the first Hitoshura demon in a way that was too close to worship for him. That was something that Dante had to deal with, not Vergil.

What had driven Naoki to seek out Dante was finding out that, despite what Lucifer had led him to believe, it had indeed been possible for him to restore his world and the humans that had lived there.

Too late now.

Lucia was only the most recent example. Dante was undoubtedly charismatic, the leader Vergil never would be. The young, the lost, those who didn't know their place in the world, he gave them faith and gained their love.

Here was one of the most powerful beings in the universe, and he came to Dante, as though Dante knew all the secrets of the multiverse.

What was more, he dared have a crush on his brother. Vergil was used to that as well.

Shura was perfect. He had been human once, Dante would appreciate that and he was the full demon Vergil had failed to become. Not family, so no pesky incest taboo.

Vergil wished Naoki had chosen to restore his world as much as Naoki did, for then he would have been human, living a normal life far away from his brother.

Yes, Dante had just offered him a place to stay. What was it with his brother and strays?!

But then, Vergil himself was one of those strays. He had no place to go, besides wherever Dante was. He needed Dante, he shouldn't begrudge others.

What a human thing to think.


End file.
